Before we begin, a quick note. We've used voice actors throughout this episode to bring you the words spoken in court. From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Wednesday, May twenty eight, twenty twenty five. Gas is back with a vengeance in Queensland with the chris of fully liberal government to unlock sixteen thousand square kilometers for
exploration to address looming energy shortages. Sydney University's latest recruit is genuine Royalty Princess of Norway Ingrid Alexandra Glucksburg twenty one is to study a Bachelor of Arts, but the usual jokes about arts grads don't apply. This one is second in line to the throne and will one day be Queen Ingrid. You can read our colleague Richard Ferguson's hilarious take on that story right now at The Australian
dot com dot au. Aaron Patterson told police she'd never foraged for mushrooms and didn't own a dehydrator, even after police had seized CCTV showing Patterson dumping a dehydrator at a tip. Today, we're bringing you Aaron Patterson's police interview recreated by voice actors after it was played at the Supreme Court trial where she's pleaded not guilty to murder.
My name's Luke Farrell, detective sergeant. The reason we hear today is to execute a search warrant, sure, and it's in connection with the death of two people over the last couple of days.
Hey died.
That's the opening moment of a day that's become very important in the trial of Aaron Patterson, the Victorian mother of two who's accused of murdering three elderly relatives and attempting to murder a fourth. She has pleaded not guilty at eleven forty am. On August five, twenty twenty three, four police officers showed up at Patterson's home on the outskirts of Lea and Gaffer, a small community in Victoria's Gippsland.
Homicide Detective Luke Farrell took the lead, and after that exchange on the doorstep, the officers spent four hours combing through the house. On Tuesday, Prosecutor Jane Warren took Detective Sergeant Farrell through photos taken on the day and.
On the bench there, what do we see that.
Is a cookbook recipe Team Eats Dinner cookbook.
Did you open the book and look inside the book at the time of locating this, Yes, I did, okay, And did you locate a recipe of relevance to your inquiries?
Yes, So it wasn't a bookmark page, but on a separate page there was a beef Wellington recipe. Yes, and that page was spatted with cooking liquids.
The cops went through the house, seizing electronic devices and other items, and then they took Erin Patterson to one Thaggy Police station to answer some questions. Today, we're going to voice act for you that interview, which was recorded on video and played to the jury on Tuesday. The interviewing officer was Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall of Victoria Police's Homicide Squad. He's the lead investigator in this matter.
Eppingstall told the court one of his first actions in the case on August four, five days after the lunch, was to ask a tactical intelligence officer, Detective Senior Constable Meg Crawford, to begin looking through Aaron Patterson's records, including bank details. Crawford found a transaction from two days earlier August iiO made by Aaron Patterson at the Kunwara Transfers station. The local tip police obtained CCTV of Patterson at the tip and visited to recover the item she deposited, a
black Sunbeam food dehydrator. After searching Patterson's home, Eppingstall was ready to ask his questions.
This is a DVD recorded interview between Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall and Aaron Patterson of Leon Gatha, conducted at the one Thaggy Police Station on Saturday, the fifth of August twenty twenty three. The other person present is my cooperator, Detective Senior Constable David Martin. Eron. Do you agree The time is now four forty one by my watch? Yep. Could you please state your full name and address.
For me, Aaron, Trudy Patterson, Lee and Gatha.
Now, as we discussed earlier, and we've been together for a few hours now, it was after eleven thirty that we came to your house today. We want to discuss the deaths of Heather Wilkinson and Gal Patterson today with you. When we were at the house earlier, we discussed that you hadn't really been kept in the loop, and it come as news to you that Heather and Gaiale had
both passed away. Following eating at your house. Donald, Ian, Gale, and Heather all became so ill that they ultimately ended up in the intensive care unit at both danny On Hospital and then moved to Austin Hospital. Following that they've had a deterioration in their condition that they become so ill that their livers have failed. All right, Donald underwent a transplant last night, okay, and his condition is still extremely critical. As I advised before, Heather and Gale have
passed away. In relation to Ian, I don't have a current prognosis in relation to where he's at. We're trying to understand what has made them so ill. Do you understand why we're asking these questions?
Yeah?
On the other hand, conversely, we're trying to understand why you're not that ill. Do you understand why we're interviewing you today?
Yeap, I do. But I'm sure you understand too that I've never been in a situation like this, and I've been very very helpful with the health department through the week because I wanted to help that side of things as much as possible, because I do want to know what happened. So I've given them as much information as they've asked for and offered up all the food and all the information about where the food came from at the house.
And I must say, for the record again you were very helpful at the house and you did point out a couple of things for us that will help us with our investigation, mainly the fruit platter that you said how they bought for you, and the gravy and the fridge or the pantry that you said was from the night and you kept on advice from the Health Department,
so thank you for that. You also pointed out a recipe book on the counter and you referred me to page two hundred and fifty odd the recipe for beef Wellington, and you indicated that was the recipe you'd cooked. We didn't see a lot of food Fromation Grossers or Indian gross or those kinds of stores.
Did you look in my fridge. I've got a lot of Asian cooking stuff in my fridge.
I did to find more of that kind of stuff at the Mount Waverley address, do you think or no?
Because I did a big clean out of the pantry, which is the last time that I was there, because I'm going to sell that place.
Obviously, we've got concerns in relation to the mushrooms and where they've come from. Is that something you've done in the past, foraging for mushrooms or anything like that.
Never, never, never, do.
You preserve foods or anything like that. No, have you ever dehydrated food or anything?
No.
Coming up more of Aaron Patterson's police interview. That's after the break.
You've described the relationship with your ex partner, Simon. I'd like to understand why you had his parents and his uncle.
And aunt over for lunch because I've no other family and they've always been really good to me, and I want to maintain those relationships with them in spite of what's happened with Simon. I love them a lot. They've always been really good to me, and they always said to me that they would support me with love and emotional support even though Simon and I were separated, and I really appreciated that. Because my parents are both gone,
my grandparents are all gone. They're the only family that I've got and they're the only grandparents that my children have, and I want them to stay in my kid's life, and that's really important to me. I think Simon hated that I still had a relationship with his parents, but I love them. Nothing that's ever happened between us, nothing is ever done to me, will change the fact that they are good, decent people that have never done anything wrong by me.
Ever, so we've been told that. On the thirty first of July, So two days after the lunch you went to the Lambgatha Hospital. I think you were only there for about five minutes and then you left. Can you explain why you went there for five minutes?
Yeah, because I just went there thinking I needed a couple of bags of saline because I was really dehydrated. And they said they want to admit me and send me to Melbourne. And when you've got animals at home and children who have multiple after school activities, you can't just be told to drop everything and you're off to Melbourne for the night. So I had to go home and feed the animals and pack my daughter's ballet bag. And I did that and I went back.
Who did you speak to?
So I walked in and there was like, I don't think they were a nurse. It was like, I don't know, it could have been an enrolled nurse or it was like to help a person in the triage room, right, And she says, like, are you okay? And I said said, well, no, I have to run to the toilet. I've got diarrhea. And she wasn't quite sure where it was, and so she went and found out and showed me where it is, and then she said, I'll go and find someone. I'll get a nurse or a doctor for you. And so
I went to the toilet, I came back out. I was waiting in the triage area and then a doctor came out, Dr Webster, and he said to me, sorry, we're going to be a little whild because we've got a couple of critical patients in the hospital. And I said, that's fine, don't worry about me. I'm just a gastroad case. I'm not urgent, obviously. And he said, oh, what's your name and I said Erin and he said, oh, we've been expecting you because other people that you ate with
on Saturday are sick. And he said can you come through and I said sure, and then he said to me, I can't remember the exact words, but he said something along the lines of we've got a concern that they've eaten death cap mushrooms and I said what and he said, yeah, that's what we think they've eaten, and then started asking me about what food I served them, and I told him.
All right, I understand you went down at the hospital and got treatment of that. What kind of treatment did you get?
Oh, they hooked me up to a drip. They said that they were concerned. So Dr Webster had to leave. I think he was at the end of his shift, and he passed on to another doctor and she said to me, because the concern is that everybody's eaten something that hurts your liver, we need to give you this
protective medicine. And so there was saline or something or other, but she said, we need to get you this and then put you in an ambulance up to Melbourne where they can give you more, where they can get you better. So I got saline and other stuff. How long are you at the hospital for till Tuesday?
And again full disclosure, so you understand, we've obtained warrants to medical records for everyone involved in this, so we'll get medical records in relation to new treatment there as well. Sure you were at home in person when we did a search warrant today, right, And like I said, we'll give you a little copy of this everything we've seized. Kitchen fire left bottom drawer instruction manual for a Sunbeam Food Lab. Electronic dehydrator. What's that in relation to you
know anything about a dehydrator in your house? No, do you own a dehydrator? No?
Oh, I've got manuals of lots of stuff like that. Over the years, I've had all sorts of appliances and I just keep them all.
Okay, Okay, when did you own a dehydrator?
About eight or nine years ago?
Okay, what did you use that for?
Like when I first got the Thermomix, I got really excited about making everything from scratch, you know, and I did get a lot of you know, like everything from scratch ingredients, and I did a lot of that. So we'll have something like that.
Okay, kitchen bench located against the wall. Recipe Tineat's book.
That's that recipe book.
That's the same book that the Wellington recipe comes out of. M well I think of it. One other thing that I should mention again to your credit. Police went around the house on that morning on the thirty first, and they were obviously responding to the hospital call to check up on you, and they spoke to you on the phone and you gave them the pin code for your gate and directed them to the bin where there were some leftovers. What were those leftovers that you directed them to?
Uneeded food from the lunch.
So you helped them getting that so it would be sampled.
Because my kids ate them too, So there was stuff that was left over and it went straight in the bin. And so when I went to the hospital and they said they were concerned that everyone ate some contaminated food, I said, well, there's the leftovers in the bin. You can have it. Feel free to look through it. And I said I'll go and get it if you want. And they said that's fine, you need to go on a drip. We'll call the police. And I said, well, that's fine, just let them know I need to give
them a pin code. So they did that and a bag of food appeared a bit later.
Yep, so again thank you for helping us locate that. All right, erin do you agree? The time is now five point thirty pm by my watch? All right, I'm going to suspend the interview.
Now, the video stopped and Justice Christopher Biale told the jury that irrelevant material had been edited out of the video. Prosecutor Jane Warren confirmed with Stephen Eppingstall that Don Patterson died later that night. A few weeks later, Ian Wilkinson was released from hospital and police continued their inquiries.
As a result of those inquiries, was the accused arrested by police on the second of November twenty twenty three and formally charged.
Yes, ma'am.
Aaron Patterson has consistently denied deliberately poisoning anyone and has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The trial continues on Wednesday. The Australian subscribers get all our live coverage, plus the reporting from our team on the ground, John Ferguson and Ellie Dudley. Check it out at the Australian dot com dot Au